For example, a book entitled “Think Like a Genius” might well be adjusted to “Think Like A Genius”, for no other reason than the publishing house or author thinks it looks better on the cover. The APA stylebook suggests that the second word in a compound word should be capitalized, such as “Self-Report.”. The following symbols are used: Title Case and Sentence Case Capitalization in, How to Format Scientific Names of Animals, We Couldnât Kill the Internet If We Tried, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles#Capital_letters, Capitalize the first word of titles and subtitles, Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions (. Rules to Follow: Like other things in grammar capitalization of the title also have some basic rules. Start correcting titles today and help make the world a capitalization-friendly place. Do not reproduce any unusual typographic characteristics, such as special capitalization or lowercasing of all letters. According to most style guides, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are the only words capitalized in titles of books, articles, and songs. The Wikipedia rules are detailed and clearly specify how to capitalize a multitude of cases, with the exception of hyphenated compounds, for which the rules instruct to follow external sources. He was manager of communications in a telephone billing company and owner of a company writing documents on contract for government agencies and corporations. In light of this, here’s a short list of tricky word groupings that often trip people up: It’s a lot to take in, we know, and so you’ll need to practice writing a few titles before things begin to click into place. The capitalization rules for titles of books, movies, and other works vary a little between style guides. This usually takes on one of two forms: capitalizing every word, or capitalizing words containing three or more letters. The three major style guides, The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Stylebook, and the MLA Handbook have the same guidelines, with two exceptions. This simple guide will help you capitalize words in titles and headings correctly. While all other styles discussed on this page always capitalize the last word of a title, The Publication Manual does not explicitly state how. There are two basic styles for the capitalization of titles and headlines, However, there is no universal convention which words in a title are major and which are minor. You see, many moons ago, writers did NOT capitalize any conjunctions or prepositions. This results in the prepositions, Taken verbatim, the New York Times rules would mean that. Colleges/universities – 143. Important words include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and more. This rule will help you avoid making errors when using conjunctions and prepositions in your titles. Bear in mind, though, occasionally a writer will break the rules to suit their preference or to appropriate a concept. Nonprofit organizations – 495 About / Above / Across / After / Against / Along / Although / Among / Around / Because / Before / Behind / Below / Beneath / Beside / Between / During / Except / Inside / Outside / Since / Through / Toward / Under / Underneath / Unless / Until / Whenever / Where / Whereas / Wherever / While / Within / Without, and / as / as if / as long as / at / but / by / even if / for / from / if / if only / in / into / like / near / now that / nor / of / off / on / on top of / once / onto / or / out of / over / past / so / so that / than / that / till / to / up / upon / with / when / yet. The Business Writing Center has been evaluated and has received awards or recognition from a number of organizations and media: The APA stylebook and MLA stylebook suggest capitalizing all words with four or more letters. Therefore, capitalize the following parts of speech: Do not capitalize the following parts of speech when they fall in the middle of a title: Use a colon and a space to separate a title from a subtitle, unless the title ends in a question mark or an exclamation point. In fact, the majority of people adopt rules from others who don’t know either. Where blog posts and internal work communications are concerned you can usually get away with such sins, largely … Wouldn't you rather be an ambassador of proper titling rather than a capitalization criminal? Examples of conjunctions not to be capitalized (four or fewer letters): and / as / but / for / if / nor / once / or / so / than / that / till / when / yet. Froke, Paula, Bratton, Anna Jo, Garcia, Oskar, McMillan, Jeff, Minthorn, David, and Schwartz, Jerry.